Re: Capturing display file images for documentation

[Martin Rowe <martin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 15 July 2004 19:39, Reeve wrote:
> I'm trying to capture display file images with "real" data for
> documentation.  My results are lousy: the JPG images, when pasted into a
> Word document, look pasty (slightly fuzzy) even though they're 200K or
> more.

Hi Reeve

200K seems pretty big, but I guess that depends on the resolution. If you 
have a look at an example of the screenshots I use on my site - 
http://www.dbg400.net/pngindex.html - you'll see they appear sharp, but 
are, on average, less than 20K. The main difference is they are .png 
(Portable Network Graphic) images, not .jpg. For simple images (not complex 
photographs) png images seem to be much better for both size & clarity. The 
equivalent jpg screenshots - http://www.dbg400.net/jpgindex.html - tend to 
be around 2-4 times the size, and look dull by comparison.

> Client Access uses the IBM3270 font (8 x 18).  I'm using both ScreenPrint
> Platinum 4.8 and SnagIt 7 to capture the images: they're both good
> products, although SnagIt appears to have more tools.  I'm not using
> progressive encoding on ScreenPrint.

I used the GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) to capture the screenshots, 
which is also available for Windows if your two apps can't (easily) convert 
to png. http://www.gimp.org/windows/ and follow the Jernej Simoncic link to
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/

Regards, Martin
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